cost–effective, farmhouse, graphic equalizers, park bench, around–the–clock, or son of a gun), by combining prefixes or suffixes with words (as in ex–president, shoeless, presorted, or uninterruptedly), or by combining two or more word elements (as in macrophage or photochromism). Compounds are written in one of three ways: solid (as in cottonmouth), hyphenated (screenwriter–director), or open (health care). Because of the variety of standard practice, the choice among the styles for a given compound represents one of the most common and vexing of all style issues writers encounter. Text for this article was adapted from Merriam-Webster's Manual for Writers and Editors.